Pant-type articles are used as regular pants (underwear), protective pants and absorbent pants. A large number of different methods for producing such articles are known.
A recurring problem with pant manufacture (particularly absorbent pants) has been that pants having a “boxer-short” configuration have been difficult to manufacture efficiently. A simple way to manufacture boxer-short pants is to join front and rear panels, and remove portions of the material in the crotch portion to form the legs (as per US 2003/0115660). However, in these methods, the material which is removed in the crotch portion is discarded, which often requires extra handling steps to deal with the waste material. In addition, the process shown in US 2003/0115660 makes it difficult to apply core packets to the pants.
It is desirable to manufacture pant-type articles side-by-side in a continuous process, in which front and rear halves are constituted by two separate material webs which are joined at the crotch portion and folded together such that front and rear halves overlap. Sealing and cutting the webs provides individual articles. Side-by-side processes are desirable, as they allow rapid, efficient production, while also allowing front and rear halves to be varied independently of one another e.g. in their size, shape, properties or materials. Such variation is not possible in so-called “head-to-tail” manufacture, in which front and rear halves are cut from the same material web.
However, any attempt to manufacture pants using known side-by-side processes will not allow leg holes to extend beyond the fold-line, as is required in boxer-shorts. This is due to the lack of material beyond the fold-line that can form legs.
There remains, therefore, a need for a new pant-type article, and associated manufacturing method, particularly articles having a boxer-short configuration. The pant-type article should be simple and easy to construct and minimize wastage. The pant-type article should provide advantages in strength, comfort and leakage-prevention as compared with known pant-type articles.